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The year is 1938, India is ruled by the British, and it is around this
time that Mohandas K. Gandhi has arrived from Africa to begin his tryst
with the British, as well as battle the traditions that bind the
Hindus. Not yet in her teens, Chuyia is married to a much older and
sickly male, who shortly after the marriage, passes away. Chuyia is
returned unceremoniously to her parents' house, and from there she is
taken to the holy city of Banaras and left in the care of a wide
assortment of widows who live at "the widows' house," shunned by the
rest of the community. Chuyia believes that her mother will come to
take her home. Here she meets several elderly women, including the head
of the house, Madhumati; a quiet, confident woman named Shakuntala; and
a gorgeous young woman named Kalyani -- all widows. Chuyia does not
know that according to Holy Hindu Scriptures she has been destined to
live here for the rest of her life, for when a woman's husband dies',
she has three options: One, to marry her husband's younger brother, if
his family permits; two, to kill herself on his funeral pyre; three, to
live a life of celibacy, discipline, and solitude amongst her own kind.
A new law in India which permits a widow to re-marry is not popular,
and it is these customs and openly welcoming the lower castes that will
pit Gandhiji against his very own people, apart from struggling with
the British to leave India. Kalyani meets and falls in love with young
Narayan, a follower of Mahatma Gandhi, who wants to marry her, despite
his mother's protests. But on the day he comes to take her to his home,
as they are crossing the river to his family estate, Kalyani recognizes
the house, the very same house she had been forced to visit as a
"prostitute," to be with Narayan's father. The question remains, can
Kalyani marry the man she loves? Will he want to marry her when he
knows what has passed between her and his father? And is Chuyia really
destined to live the rest of her life as a widow among shunned widows?
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